You’ve worked so hard on how you practice. Got the process streamlined and efficient to maximise your learning.
All your exercises are laser-focused on what you want to improve. You can get into that practice mode effortlessly, spot any imperfections straight away, and immediately calculate what you need to do to fix them.
But did you realise that every step you take that improves your practice could be dragging your performance down?
More...
Practice mindset and performance mindset should be two different things
There are different demands on you when you perform and when you practice.
Your goals are different.
So your mindset needs to be different too.
And you want to be able to access that mindset easily whenever you perform.
As Charlie Parker said: “You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”
But you probably spend much more time practicing than performing. You assume that when you want to “just wail”, it will be easy. When it comes to that moment, though, you’re confused to find yourself still trapped in your practice mindset.
You don’t fully realise that you need to develop and nurture BOTH mindsets. You need to work on that performance mindset so it’s available when you want it.
Without this awareness, the imbalance between practice and performance time results in you continually strengthening your practice mindset at the expense of your performance mindset.
The big danger here is that the short-term results encourage you to focus on practice
Pouring all your energy and focus into efficient practice gives you observable progress in the practice room.
Everything seems to be going brilliantly.
Right up to the point where you get on stage to perform and fall well short of your potential because you simply don’t have access to that performance mindset.
Maybe you blame lack of sufficient practice as the problem. Or maybe you don’t even realise how much we’re selling yourself short and think that your performance is just inevitably going to be at a lower level than your practice.
Either way you head back to the practice room and throw yourself back into the practice mindset. You don’t realise that this is the very thing holding you back.
Lack of a great performance mindset can also reduce your enjoyment of performance, subtly nudging you to practice more and perform less in the future. The cycle keeps going round and reinforcing itself.
In order to fix this, you need three elements:
- Know what your performance mindset wants to be
- Be able to adopt that mindset in practice as well as in theory
- Be able to make the switch at the right time, on demand
What does an ideal performance mindset/state look like?
Your ideal performance mindset should be more about the big picture than the little details.
It’s about conceiving the music that you want to create really clearly and vividly in your mind. Your focus is always on what you’re doing RIGHT NOW to realise that conception fully.
It’s not about noticing what’s gone wrong (or even what’s gone right).
It’s definitely not about analysing what’s just happened.
That’s really useful after the fact, but it’s positively unhelpful during the performance.
Yes, you do need to listen to what you’re playing as you perform. But it’s the conceiving part that’s more important than the listening part. And the listening is purely for feedback, not for analysis or judgement.
If the thought of not analysing what you play in real time bothers you, then I suggest you make a habit of recording your performances. That allows you to go back later and analyse to your heart’s content.
It’s also not about carefully controlling all of your physical movements.
As long as you have a really clear conception of the sound you want then you can trust your body to find the right way to make it a reality.
If that sort of mindset seems very strange to you, don’t worry
The thought of it might even make you feel uncomfortable.
You’re not alone in this.
It’s very common for conscientious musicians to get used to operating in a practice mindset. It tends to become their comfort zone.
In order to redress the balance, you’re going to have to spend a fair bit of practice time deliberately heading the other way.
Choose a piece to play, get ready, and launch into it aiming to adopt a performance mindset.
Hear what you want to play clearly in your mind before you play it – don’t analyse what you’ve just played.
Think of the bigger picture you’re looking to communicate – don’t worry about the little details.
And just let the music happen freely – don’t try and control your playing.
It will feel strange at first.
To start with, you may well find that you frequently fail to achieve this mindset at all. And you’ll almost certainly find yourself regularly slipping back into an analysing, detail-focused, practice mindset despite your best intention to stay with a performance mindset.
If you stick with it, though, you’ll make progress.
The more time you spend working on it, the stronger your connection to this state will get.
Ultimately, you want to be able to access the performance mindset in an instant
And, in a real performance situation, there will probably be temptations to veer towards the practice mindset. When the stakes are high, we want to be able to control the little details. To judge how well we’re playing. To avoid mistakes.
A great way to improve this is to use a pre-performance routine to help you access your ideal performance state.
You can build in aspects to the routine that help you achieve that performance mindset.
There’s a further hook, though. As you repeatedly practice using the routine to access your performance mindset you’ll start to associate the two things. Over time, going through the routine will, in itself, help you to achieve your desired performance state.
Moving forward
We’ve seen that your performance mindset and your practice mindset should be two different things.
Unless you’re performing as much as you practice, though, the chances are that you’re unwittingly biasing yourself towards adopting a practice mindset all the time.
Developing a strong performance mindset and learning to access it can make a massive difference to how well you perform. It will take time to get it working, though. It can also be a constant battle to stay with that mindset as you play, and to resist the temptation to go back to analysing and judging.
Ultimately, this is not something that you ever “finish”.
Like all the most rewarding things, you can carry on deepening your understanding and skill indefinitely.
But the benefits are huge – each step you take along the way will increase both the level of your performance and your enjoyment of the performing experience.
Do you have a clear separation between your practice and performance mindsets? Let me know in the comments below.
Oh and before I go
If you enjoyed this article: Please share it using the social media buttons below. Or click here to tell your friends.